History Literature / YoungWizards

# ''So You Want To Be A Wizard'': Nita Callahan and Kit Rodriguez become wizards and must use their newfound abilities to defend New York City, Earth, and possibly even the Universe itself from a supernatural threat.
# ''Deep Wizardry'': Nita and Kit discover that non-humans can be wizards too, and must work with Cetacean (whale) wizards to defeat a scheme to devastate the Eastern Seaboard of the United States.
# ''High Wizardry'': Nita's precocious little sister Dairine becomes a wizard, and major fireworks [[HilarityEnsues ensue]].
# ''A Wizard Abroad'': Nita travels to Ireland and finds out that wizardry is somewhat different there than in the United States.
# ''The Wizard's Dilemma'': Nita's mother develops a serious illness, and Nita enters dangerous wizardly waters in search of a cure.
# ''A Wizard Alone'': Nita and Kit must find a way to help a new Wizard, who is autistic, complete his wizardly "Ordeal" and gain full access to his abilities.
# ''Wizard's Holiday'': Nita and Kit go on "vacation" to an alien world which turns out to have a unique and knotty problem; meanwhile, back on Earth, Dairine has to cope with three alien "exchange student" wizards who have come to visit.
# ''Wizards At War'': A new danger appears, threatening all of Wizardry itself. Nita and Kit and Dairine gather all the other young wizards they've met, as well as some new ones, to find a way to restore the power of Wizardry before it's too late.
# ''A Wizard of Mars'': There may be signs of life on Mars, but while investigating, Kit begins to act strangely.
# ''Games Wizards Play'': Nita, Kit and Dairine coach contestants in a wizardly contest to win a year-long apprenticeship with Earth's Planetary Wizard, but all does not go as planned.

* ''Theobroma'' - A side story involving none of the usual characters; instead, we're introduced to Ken, an adult, work-a-day wizard who does "agency work", consulting on problems both magical and mundane. Today's assignment: help a woman fill the sudden vacancy in her gourmet chocolate shop. Turns out her chocolate-making partner isn't the only thing that left...
* ''Uptown Local'' - Set shortly after ''So You Want To Be A Wizard''. Kit and Nita are bored and pester Tom for entertainment: he sends them off to go ride the New York subway. Actually, several New York's subways.

* ''So You Want To Be A Wizard'': Nita Callahan and Kit Rodriguez become wizards and must use their newfound abilities to defend New York City, Earth, and possibly even the Universe itself from a supernatural threat.
* ''Deep Wizardry'': Nita and Kit discover that non-humans can be wizards too, and must work with Cetacean (whale) wizards to defeat a scheme to devastate the Eastern Seaboard of the United States.
* ''High Wizardry'': Nita's precocious little sister Dairine becomes a wizard, and major fireworks [[HilarityEnsues ensue]].
* ''A Wizard Abroad'': Nita travels to Ireland and finds out that wizardry is somewhat different there than in the United States.
* ''The Wizard's Dilemma'': Nita's mother develops a serious illness, and Nita enters dangerous wizardly waters in search of a cure.
* ''A Wizard Alone'': Nita and Kit must find a way to help a new Wizard, who is autistic, complete his wizardly "Ordeal" and gain full access to his abilities.
* ''Wizard's Holiday'': Nita and Kit go on "vacation" to an alien world which turns out to have a unique and knotty problem; meanwhile, back on Earth, Dairine has to cope with three alien "exchange student" wizards who have come to visit.
* ''Wizards At War'': A new danger appears, threatening all of Wizardry itself. Nita and Kit and Dairine gather all the other young wizards they've met, as well as some new ones, to find a way to restore the power of Wizardry before it's too late.
* ''A Wizard of Mars'': There may be signs of life on Mars, but while investigating, Kit begins to act strangely.
* ''Games Wizards Play'': Nita, Kit and Dairine coach contestants in a wizardly contest to win a year-long apprenticeship with Earth's Planetary Wizard, but all does not go as planned.

* ''Lifeboats'' - Kit, Nita, Dairine and Rolan (among others) are called upon for an emergency evacuation of an entire alien race to new planets, because their moon is about to break up and the pieces will crash into the planet, in full-blown ''Armageddon'' style. Problem is, millions of the aliens almost inexplicably don't want to leave even in the face of unavoidable death and no one truly understands why. Kit, meanwhile, is fretting about Valentine's Day )[[spoiler:since he and Nita were promoted to OfficialCouple in ''A Wizard of Mars'']]) and even a race to save a world isn't enough to get it off his mind.

* [[spoiler:OfficialCouple: Nita and Kit, as of the end of ''A Wizard of Mars''.]]

** The Lone Power in book 7. The events described below in DidYouJustPunchOutCthulhu make for a very horrible life for her. Basically, she is the devil living for thousands of years on a utopic world.
** Also the fate of [[spoiler: The Lone Power]] in A Wizard Alone when [[spoiler: Darryl traps it in his mind world with his autistic self.]]

** There's also an in-character moment of this in book seven, when Nita and Kit visit an alien world and see a recording of that species's Choice. In the recording, the whole thing goes down in about fifteen minutes, and not only does the species come out of it with lifespans in the thousands of years and without any particular cataclysm, when they die their souls stay in the world and keep communication with their loved ones. And not only does the Lone One not do anything about this, She's bound herself into the world and can't leave... so they end up ''building her a place to stay'', as a reminder of what to avoid, which mostly gets used as a ''tourist attraction.'' She's still there. They go to visit. Compared to life on Earth... [[DidYouJustPunchOutCthulhu these guys just punched out Cthulhu]], and seem to have gotten away with it on an amazing scale. [[spoiler: "Seem" being the key word there.]]

* AndroclesLion: In the first book, Kit saves a Lotus Esprit by removing wreckage from its axle. It then goes on to help him and Nita a number of times later, including stalling the Lone Power to allow them to get away back to their universe.

* TheOnlyOne: Justified in that the wizards are only sent into situations for which they are singularly qualified to perform.

* NoodleIncident: A bizarre verb-version of the trope: grenfelzing. Frequently referenced as being ''some'' kind of alien activity, but never, ever explained. Apparently it includes chocolate.

* SesquipedalianLoquaciousness: The wizard's manual describes plain old things like teleportation in insanely impossible-to-understand words. Justified in that magic is based on telling the universe what you want it to do in a very specific manner. You NEED to be able to split hairs and use precise diction. Especially when you want to do things like bring air with you on your jaunt to the moon. If you miswrite a name, the named changes to fit.

* WorthlessYellowRocks: In "Wizards at War", Carmela bribes a group of aliens with chocolate bar knowing that off Earth, chocolate is a valuable substance as either an expensive delicacy or form of currency.

* ''Games Wizards Play'' (coming [[http://www.youngwizards.com/gameswizardsplay/ February 2, 2016]]): Nita, Kit and Dairine coach contestants in a wizardly contest to win a year-long apprenticeship with Earth's Planetary Wizard, but all does not go as planned.

* AnyoneCanDie: And they probably will, if they have a nickname. (Lampshaded in the short story "Not On My Patch", where Kit questions if it's really a good idea for Nita to nickname her jack'o'lantern.)

* NuttySquirrel: A subversion in Doggie heaven (a place Ponch created). Since Ponch, a dog, created it, the squirrels there are likeise created to be chased. In the eighth book, a squirrel is even the personification of a trail for Ponch.

* ''Lifeboats'' - set after ''How Lovely Are Thy Branches'', but before ''Games Wizards Play''. Kit, Nita, Dairine and Rolan (among others) are called upon for an emergency evacuation of an entire alien race to new planets, because their moon is about to break up and the pieces will crash into the planet, in full-blown ''Armageddon'' style. Problem is, millions of the aliens almost inexplicably don't want to leave even in the face of unavoidable death and no one truly understands why. Kit, meanwhile, is fretting about Valentine's Day )[[spoiler:since he and Nita were promoted to OfficialCouple in ''A Wizard of Mars'']]) and even a race to save a world isn't enough to get it off his mind.

A few short stories are also set in the universe:

* ''Not On My Patch'' - Set after ''A Wizard of Mars''. It's Halloween, a day where many wizards can get away with flaunting a little magic in the open, and after what had been a rough year, Nita, Dairine and her Dad decide to have a proper Halloween celebration. It's fallen to Nita to carve the pumpkin...a rather misshapen specimen her father brought home. She ends up having a philosophical discussion with the pumpkin about its opinion on the matter, and then in a bout of odd sentimentality, decides to bring it with her trick-or-treating. Joined by Kit and Ronan, they hit the streets and visit Tom and Carl's neighborhood haunted house. All and all, a great evening, until the pumpkin starts feeling something very wrong happening in its home patch...
* ''How Lovely Are Thy Branches: A Young Wizards Christmas'' - set after ''Not On My Patch''. Thanks to a record-breaking blizzard, a two-day party (including epic sleepover) takes place at the Rodriguez house, during which Carmela finally manages to grant a long-held wish of her best wizardly friend, the tree-shaped Filif, by getting him fully decked out in Christmas decorations. (as of this writing, I haven't found it on Amazon, but it's available at ebooksdirect.dianeduane.com)
* ''Lifeboats'' - set after ''How Lovely Are Thy Branches'', but before ''Games Wizards Play''. Kit, Nita, Dairine and Rolan (among others) are called upon for an emergency evacuation of an entire alien race to new planets, because their moon is about to break up and the pieces will crash into the planet, in full-blown ''Armageddon'' style. Problem is, millions of the aliens don't want to leave their planet. So either the wizards have to fix the moon, or watch millions of hominids die. (again, to my knowledge only available at ebooksdirect.dianeduane.com)
update: according to Duane's tumblr, ''Patch'', ''Branches'' and ''Lifeboats'' are due to be collected in the e-book ''Young Wizards: Interim Errantry'', which is supposed to be available at Amazon in mid-September 2015. Of course, ''Games Wizards Play'' was supposed to be out in 2013, too...

update: according to Duane's tumblr, ''Lifeboats'' and it's 'companion novellas' are due to be collected in the e-book ''Young Wizards: Interim Errantry'', and is supposed to be available at Amazon in mid-September 2015. Of course, ''Games Wizards Play'' was supposed to be out in 2013, too...

Apparently, it's the only being ever who actually knows the meaning of life, so every Wizard that's ever lucky enough to meet it asks for the answer. Fanon says that it once answered '42' as a joke to a young Earth wizard named Douglas Adams.

* MissingMom: [[spoiler: Betty Calahan dies in book five.]] The entire sixth book deals with the loss.